Ho Feng-Shan: Forgotten Holocaust Hero

Credited with saving at least 1,200 lives during the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler’s story is recounted in the critically acclaimed Schindler’s List (1993). By hiring Jews to work in his enamelware factories, Schindler spared his employees from the concentration camps. Though his heroic actions are certainly worthy of such a well-made film, Schindler is only one of many figures who saved people from the Holocaust. Another of these figures was Ho Feng-Shan, a diplomat who saved thousands of lives.

Ho Feng-Shan [Source: Manli Ho Collection]

On March 12, 1938, when Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich in the Anschluss, 36 year-old Ho was a diplomat in Vienna with the Republic of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many of Austria’s roughly 185,000 Jewish inhabitants had already begun searching for a way to leave. However, the Nazi government had issued a requirement that all Jews obtain a valid visa to travel outside the country, something that became increasingly difficult as more and more countries closed their doors to Jewish immigration, either because of outright antisemitism or a desire not to gain Hitler’s ire. At the Évian Conference in July, a summit held to address the issue of Jewish refugees, only one of the thirty-two nations in attendance, the Dominican Republic, agreed to take some Jewish immigrants. Ho had been explicitly ordered by his superiors not to issue travel visas to Jews.

Despite these orders, Ho immediately started writing visas and distributing them to the desperate Austrian Jews looking for a way out. He issued visas for Shanghai, at the time under Japanese occupation. With his help, thousands of Jews arrived there, with some making their way to other countries later, and some staying behind in the overcrowded but comparatively safe Shanghai Ghetto. Prospective émigrés who had already been to dozens of other consulates seeking visas with no luck would be surprised when, after knocking on the Chinese consulate door and explaining their situation, they were presented with visas for them and their entire extended family.

Life inside the Shanghai Ghetto wasn’t easy. Often residents were forced to share a tiny, rat-infested apartment with nine other people. The sanitation was abysmal, and disease ran rampant. The fences around the district were topped with barbed wire, and entry and exit was severely restricted. However, the refugees persevered, setting up businesses, newspapers, and sports teams. After the end of the Second World War, the ghetto residents were finally able to leave Shanghai, but artifacts and stories of their lives can still be found there at the Ohel Moshe Synagogue, now the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum.

The precise number of lives Ho Feng-Shan saved is unknown. Reliable documentation from the time period is scarce. The most conservative estimates usually credit him with saving a few thousand, yet the number could be in the tens of thousands. Despite this, Ho wouldn’t get the recognition he deserved until after his death. When the Communists took over the Mainland in 1949, he fled to Taiwan, and later continued his career as a diplomat to several other countries. He later immigrated to the United States, settling in San Francisco, where he became a US Citizen. He rarely spoke of his deeds to anyone, and when he died in 1997 at the age of 96, very few took notice. It wasn’t until 2000 when Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial organization, awarded him the title Righteous Among the Nations, making him one of only two Chinese and a handful of US Citizens to receive the honor. In 2008, Congress passed an act commemorating him and his deeds, and in 2015 a plaque was placed at the site of the former consulate building in Vienna where Ho had worked and issued his life-saving visas. He is also honored with a plaque at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum.

A large portion of Asian-American history and immigrant history in general has centered on a victim narrative, portraying Asians as being on the receiving end of oppression. Less well known are stories of Asians resisting oppression, and following their principles despite difficult circumstances. Ho Feng-Shan is an example of an immigrant whose heroism had a profound impact on victims of persecution, and his story challenges narrow narratives about Asian Americans as passive participants in history. By remembering Ho Feng-Shan, we don’t just honor his deeds, we also reclaim an overlooked aspect of the Asian American experience - resistance and compassion.

Ethan Liu